Dramatic glacier melt is just one sign that climate change is happening faster than we thought possible.

"Act now or face climate catastrophe" was the Telegraph headline. There must have been a climate conference on. That the Telegraph are giving front page space to the climate is a clear sign of how difficult it's getting to ignore the realities of how the world is changing.

Well so what?  Another day, another bad news story about the climate, right? I'm not so sure. In fact, I think the Telegraph piece summed up by that headline might actually be a good news story.

You may be noticing more climate science stories in the press this week than usual - about rapidly rising sea levels, or shrinking tropical forests - or the melting rate of Greenland.

The flurry of activity is coming out of a conference of the world's leading climate scientists that's currently underway in Copenhagen. The conference is being touted as 'science does politics' - an opportunity for climate scientists to make their voices heard in the run up to the United Nations climate talks happening in the city in December.

Last week, as snow and ice appeared to shut London completely (apart from a few hardy Greenpeace souls who stumbled to work in near-blizzard conditions,) it was perhaps inevitable that we got a few emails about the weather. This post goes out to Debbie, who emailed me to ask "why it so cold when you predicted a rise in global temperatures are you wrong?" Well, in the spirit of answering that question, allow me to present the first in an occasional run-down of some current hot topics (sorry) in climate science.